After posting for the first time in ages, I felt awesome. Energised! I went to bed later that night and my mind was whirling with ideas, which was annoying because I was tired but it was still better than having no ideas. Three years ago, when I first started this blog, I struggled so much with what to write about. I would trawl through the Daily Prompt desperate for ideas. I kept a list of links to appealing prompts saved in my phone to bust out when inspiration failed to strike me. And, back then, it failed to strike me often.

It took awhile but one day I noticed I hadn’t used those prompts in ages. In fact, nothing grabbed me when I looked through them. I had heaps of drafts lined up in WordPress and ideas would pop into my head on the bus, in the shower, before I went to sleep (which is where I got the idea for this post along with two others). It’s like your brain builds a natural curiosity about things or starts using writing as a way of thinking complicated (or sometimes very mundane) things through.

Not to say that I think it’s going to be easy from here on out but I definitely want to try and commit myself to writing more frequently. I might be busy but I’m not that busy that I can’t spare 30mins or an hour to do something I love. I can’t work all the time and do not much else. I tried that for six months and it fucking sucks. Take it from me, guys. Make the time, you’re never that fucking busy. You think you are but you’re not. And fuck, maybe you are but still, you can’t spare even 10 – 20 mins to do whatever it is you really enjoy? Go for a walk, watch your favourite program, play with your dog, whatever. You’ve got to have some ‘you’ in all that ‘them’.

So I have two more ideas for posts and we’ll see what else comes to me. There are other things I want to do besides write, like, I don’t know, maybe exercise. That’s fallen by the wayside as well. But let’s just start small. Baby steps. One day at a time. Plus I’m not super keen on getting back to exercise (to be honest, I’m that unfit I’m a bit worried) so we’ll just focus on the writing for now. It’s much less taxing. 😉

I promised myself I would do some writing tonight and it seems I’ve succeeded. I did watch an episode of American Horror Story first but, you know what, that’s ok. I’m here now and that’s what matters. I haven’t posted anything in three months so, for me, the main thing was that I didn’t come home and just get back on the computer and do more work. There have been so many nights where I’ve told myself I’ll write something, anything but then I start with just a little bit of work and next thing I know it’s midnight and… fuck! It’s happened again.

Back in November, I started doing the social media and events for two of Jared’s bars and, at the time, I naively thought I’d be able to do that part time and keep working for my other bosses (albeit reduced hours). Oh boy was I wrong. The social media is fine but the events… They’ve spiralled into so much more than a full time role. This week I’m actually training someone to start helping me because it’s too much for one person. It’s a good problem to have; too many events. And I’m loving it but, god, it’s been a full on six months.

I’ve been working some very long days. For the last I don’t even know how many weeks, there’ve been many nights when I’ll come home and get straight back on the computer to work and won’t get to bed til midnight or 1am. Then I’m back on the computer – back at work – from 9am or 10am. I hate it. Not the job, mind you. Just the workload. The lifestyle. The fact that I literally go from work to bed with no me time aside from maybe watching TV while eating dinner. It sucks but it should get better soon. Even if it doesn’t get better before we go on holiday, it should at least get better when I’m back and the new girl is all trained up and we have our systems in place.

Oh yes. The holiday. The light at the end of the tunnel, our belated honeymoon. Nine weeks of European bliss.

Paris

Barcelona

Rome

Dubrovnik

Sailing the Croatian Islands

Mykonos, Milos and Santorini

Sicily and then a road trip from the Amalfi Coast up to Florence and then back across to Milan.

I cannot fucking wait and thankfully there are only 5.5 weeks until we fly. It can’t come soon enough as far as I’m concerned. It’s starting to get that chill in the air here and little old me will be quite happy to ditch winter in favour of an endless summer. We’ll be back mid-August so we really won’t see too much of winter this year, thank fuck. If we ever become super rich, that will be my request: travel the world so we never see another winter… unless it’s by choice. Fuck. That. Shit. I want to spend my days in as little clothing as legally possible and winter ain’t gonna help me achieve that life goal. No siree, bob.

So yeah, that’s been me for the past six months but I want to do better. Just typing this now makes me realise how much I’ve missed writing. I feel a bit rusty but that’s nothing a bunch of good ol’ practice won’t fix. I just need to make time. Fuck, it’s not like it takes long.

A friend asked me the other day if I was going to get back to my writing once work settled down and, at the time, I thought no. In that moment, I think I just desperately wanted to have just some free time to do absolutely nothing. Maybe to read. Anything. I hadn’t written in so long that it felt like an impossibility. But look at me now! I’m fucking flyin’, Chop! Sorry, that’s Chopper reference. I’m pretty sure it will only make sense to Australians or people that are familiar with Eric Bana’s early work. Watch the movie. You won’t be disappointed.

Anyway, that’s enough from me. I’ve kept my promise to myself and I’m happy with my effort. Now I just need to keep it up. It’s the follow through has always been the tough bit for me.

My holiday is drawing to a close in more ways than one: tonight is our last night at Pretty Beach House plus I start back at uni tomorrow. Did you hear that? It was the world’s biggest sigh.

I went online to see if my study area was open yet (it wasn’t) but I was able to download the unit outline and start mapping out my weekly tasks. Things don’t look too drastic considering I’m only studying part-time so hopefully that means I won’t spiral off into stress-induced depression and panic. Full time work and full time study is definitely not an ideal situation although, if I’d stuck it out, I’d be done by now.

Don’t think about that, Natalie. Don’t think about that, Natalie.

Ahhh what can you do? I can’t change it now plus those first 15 months of study were fucking insane. I was so stressed and unhappy. Even when I did take time to socialise, I had this bastard voice in the back of my head reminding me what I should be doing, what tasks I still had to do and the proximity of my next assessment. Goddamn, can’t a girl just have a cheeky bender in peace and without judgement? Apparently not.

But this time it’ll be different, I’m sure of it. Part time study = at least 12hrs per week, which is manageable with my 25hrs at my part-time job and roughly one additional day of admin stuff for Jared’s bar. That’s full time work and part time study on top. I should be OK – hopefully without needing to do too much study stuff on weekends. And maybe, maybe even still have time to read and write and oh I don’t know have a social life.

We’ll just have to wait and see what the next 13 weeks have in store for me.

My uni-free summer is slowly drawing to a close and I know this because, in what has been a riveting night of entertainment, I just spent the last 2 – 3 hours going through my “short” list of 50+ units trying to decide what I want to study come March. The amount of time actually had more to do with our terrible fucking internet connection than my indecisiveness but that didn’t make it any less of a time consuming process. In fact, it made it more frustrating.

The good news is that I’ve decided on the units for my first study period and, depending on how I manage full time study with the part time work and no doubt soon to be incessant wedding planning, I’ll see if I just do one unit or two the following study period. The good thing about this course is that, after enrolment, I still have a few weeks to decide if I want to continue with a subject without getting penalised. So, if things are getting gnarly with the two units, I can drop one and cruise off into the part time study sunset. Kind of like what I did last year, except it was no study at all, which has been most excellent.

Having the past six months off from lectures, assignments, uni readings and study load stress has really helped me focus on what I want to do. I’ve totally rejigged my electives so I’ll be doing more creative writing stuff plus hopefully a whole bunch of units around gender and women’s studies, body image and maybe a little sociology. We’ll see how it pans out. I’m actually excited to get back into it but I’m sure that will fade when I get the unit outline and see what I’m actually in for. It always starts with excitement, which quickly morphs into a vague to acute panic for the first few weeks, depending on the subject, and then things kind of plateau and I get the hang of everything.

I’m not looking forward to giving up all my free time, that’s for damn sure. But I figure Jared will be working his ass off for most of this year, what with all of the shit going on with his bar empire, so I may as well put my head down and bang out my degree. Sacrifice now to gain later or whatever it is they say. Although, I’ve always been one for immediate gratification; the long game was never my thing. I always want the fun and/or yummy stuff now – long term goals be damned! Maybe I’ll change it up on myself this year. Try a different approach. See if I can actually achieve something.

Today is my first day of Xmas/NY holidays. I’m back at work on the 18th of January so I have… (that was me counting) 26 days of mostly free time on my hands. I say “mostly free time” but what I really mean is “free in theory but in practice I actually have heaps to do”.

Things like:

Planning a wedding

Thinking about what courses I want to take at uni seeing as I’m meant to start back in March

Re-stocking our photo board and wall of photo frames

Get back into the habit of writing more frequently

Maybe finish a book or two before uni starts up

Hmmm… I think that’s it aside from the usual social activities and accompanying hangovers. Who knows? Maybe some exercise, although let’s not get too ambitious.

At the moment, I feel both free and a little overwhelmed. Where to begin? My mind wanders from task to task. It’s acutely aware of the things I want to get done and seems to be trying to do them all at once. A recipe for disaster in my book.

I want this time to be relaxing but I need it to also be productive. Because what doesn’t get done now is going to take twice as long once I’m back at work and about 70 times longer once uni starts. I like to think I perform well under pressure though so we’ll see how it all pans out.

Well, my three months off from uni has arrived and I have ALL this free time and what do I want to do? Sleep, sleep and TV. I honestly thought I’d be using my time much better than this but fuck it. I have many more days in which to do exciting things. For the moment, I just need to recover.

The last 1.25 years has been an absolute shit storm of ever increasing shit-iness. Things started off fun and exciting but they steadily lost their glamour. The last three months were absolute hell (in a first world problems kind of way, I mean, I’m not in a war torn country or anything like that). But I survived. I got this far and I even managed to do really well in one of my units (jury’s still out on the other one).

These last four days of liberation have been characterised by extreme tiredness and lethargy with a smidgen of a desire to get absolutely fucking hammered. And I managed that. I suspect I will have a few more days of being tired and unmotivated and then I’ll come good. I have so many things I want to do and already it seems like the time will slip through my fingers if I’m not careful. Time has a way of doing that. I mean, how the hell did I get to 31 all of a sudden? I swear I should only be about 27 or so.

Anyways, if I learnt anything from my studies, it’s that time is incredibly precious, whether you’re on a deadline for an assignment or on a glorious study break. I intend to spend this precious, precious time doing what makes me happy and allowing myself to relax when I want to so that, when the time comes to go back to school, I feel rested and ready to take it all in stride.

If my plan to go to part-time comes to fruition, things will be better come December anyways. A girl has plans, you know?